As part of the government's Best Start in Life (BSiL) strategy, approximately 50 different P&HLE programmes have been chosen by local authorities across England to be delivered with their Best Start family hubs funding. Between 2026 and 2028, £230 million will be invested in P&HLE programme delivery through local authorities.
This represents a unique opportunity but the strategy's overall impact on children’s development depends on programmes being both effective for families and well implemented. Currently we do not know enough about which types of programmes work best for different families and how they can be implemented most successfully to support families and ensure that they achieve the intended benefits. Where evidence about the impact and implementation of P&HLE programmes does exist, there are no sustainable mechanisms to systematically translate it into commissioning decisions or service delivery. Commissioners have limited support to access and interpret the most relevant evidence; practitioners often adapt programmes informally; and learning from delivery is fragmented and rarely fed back into the improvement of programme models in a systematic way.
This project has been developed by Nesta in partnership with Foundations to take advantage of the opportunity presented by three years of funded delivery of P&HLE programmes via Best Start family hubs in England between 2026 to 2029. The project will inform Nesta’s scoping of a new initiative intended to support the evaluation, development and implementation of P&HLE programmes in England.
Across the two strands in this project we will aim to:
- start developing a pipeline of feasible impact evaluations of P&HLE programmes in England; and
- work together with Foundations to build on learning from the development of Foundations’ implementation framework, Changemakers and Partner Places programmes to establish the foundations of an implementation support infrastructure for P&HLE programmes. This will enable existing and emerging evidence about programmes to inform commissioning, implementation and continuous improvement within local authorities.
Together, the two strands will aim to drive improvements in children's early cognitive, language and socio-emotional development - particularly for disadvantaged children - through four pathways: evidence-informed commissioning decisions by local authorities; high-quality and responsive programme delivery; stronger feedback loops between evidence, implementation and service improvement; and a larger UK-generated evidence base to inform local commissioning decisions and Best Start family hubs policy.
Achieving the Plan for Change milestone of 75% of five-year-olds reaching a good level of development by 2028 requires breaking down barriers to opportunity early. Parenting support can have a significant impact on addressing these inequalities but there are many gaps in evidence about how P&HLE programmes can most effectively support families in a UK context. Some P&HLE programmes currently delivered at scale have not had the opportunity to carry out robust evaluation in the context of family hubs delivery, to learn about the impact of the programme on child and family outcomes, or what it takes to implement the programme successfully.
By building a sustainable pipeline for future evaluations alongside practical tools for evidence translation, the initiative directly supports the UK government’s Best Start in Life strategy. In doing so, it advances Nesta’s mission to break the link between family background and life chances, so every child in the UK has a fair chance of developing to their full potential in the early years.
Strand 1: Feasibility studies
In Strand 1 we are working with a cohort of seven programme developers and 14 local authorities who are delivering these P&HLE programmes in their area (two local authorities per programme). The seven programmes are:
- Early Words Together (National Literacy Trust)
- EasyPeasy
- Invest in Play
- Making it REAL (National Children’s Bureau)
- The Nurturing Programme and Parenting Puzzle Workshops (The Centre for Emotional Health)
- Peep Learning Together (Peeple)
- Understanding Your Child’s Behaviour (Togetherness)
While these programmes have a range of existing evaluation evidence, this project aims to build upon that foundation and further strengthen their evidence base.
Strand 2: Evidence translation and implementation support
Strand 2 will investigate what enables local authorities to engage with, apply and sustain evidence in the commissioning and delivery of P&HLE programmes.
In this strand of the project we will work closely with five local authorities to co-develop and prototype a practical implementation support offer that can help local authorities to use the best available evidence about P&HLE programmes in their design and implementation of Best Start family hubs services.
A summary of learning from both strands of this work will be published once the project is completed at the end of March 2027.
Nesta is planning to seek funding to carry out more feasibility studies in the future. Future opportunities for programme developers to apply to take part in a feasibility study will be publicised once these opportunities are available.
www.nesta.org.uk/project/generating-and-mobilising-evidence-for-parenting-and-home-learning-environment-programmes/
